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Thread: 3.5 V8 freshen up suggestions

  1. #1
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    3.5 V8 freshen up suggestions

    Greetings to the brains trust.

    Over the next few months I'm hoping to spend some time on my 75 2 door RRC in order to bring her up to scratch for more and more trips. She's a weekend fun car that I love to take up tracks and is also the camping mobile.

    The 3.5 V8 in her seems to be in good knick but I'd say after all these years it'd be getting a bit tired so I'm thinking about giving it a bit of a freshen up. Compression seems good (140-150 PSI on all cylinders) so I was thinking along the lines of replacing the timing gears and chain as well as putting a new camshaft (& lifters) in it for some extra torque.

    I'm fairly new to these motors so any suggestions of other areas to look at would be much appreciated. I don't want to spend a whole heap of money on the beastie, she's only used for weekend trips. I'm not chasing big power either, just some nice usable torque for cruising and hauling up hills.

    Some mechanical details for it are pretty standard. 3.5 with a Holley 350 on it and the 4 speed LT95 box. Plus I'll be doing all the work myself, fairly new to Rangies but not to british mechanics!

    Cheers,
    Steve

  2. #2
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    If you're opening up the motor, replacing rings, big ends and head gaskets at the same time won't break the budget. This is easy enough to do in vehicle if you're working with limited workshop space. Add a valve clean/grind and new inlet stem seals. Head gaskets are a common enough failure at 200,000 to 300,000km so worth putting new ones in. You also get to clean and inspect all the bits that produce the power.

  3. #3
    Homestar's Avatar
    Homestar is offline Super Moderator & CA manager Subscriber
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    With around 300,000KM on my 3.5 I started to run into low oil pressure issues when the engine was warm and idling. It might pay to look over the oil pump/clearances to make sure you have tip top oil pressure for the new cam.
    If you need to contact me please email homestarrunnerau@gmail.com - thanks - Gav.

  4. #4
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    Cheers guys,

    I'm not sure how many km's the motor has done, the odo that was in it showed 34,000km when I got it but who knows how many times its been around the clock.

    I was trying to avoid rings etc, the way I look at it is that it's not blowing any smoke and the compression is good so the rings shouldn't be too bad. I also don't want to go down the path of honing or boring the cylinders which I would want to do with a new set of rings. I'm not looking to do a full rebuild, just a freshen up.

    Good point on the oil pump, definitely worth a check although the motor seems to have no problem with good oil pressure. New stem seals are a good idea too.

    Cheers,
    Steve

  5. #5
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    yep, stem seals, cam, cam followers and timing chain. good to go again
    "How long since you've visited The Good Oil?"

    '93 V8 Rossi
    '97 to '07. sold.
    '01 V8 D2
    '06 to 10. written off.
    '03 4.6 V8 HSE D2a with Tornado ECM
    '10 to '21
    '16.5 RRS SDV8
    '21 to Infinity and Beyond!


    1988 Isuzu Bus. V10 15L NA Diesel
    Home is where you park it..

    [IMG][/IMG]

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift View Post
    yep, stem seals, cam, cam followers and timing chain. good to go again
    - Plus head gasket set...


    Just curious...Roughly how much in $?? - and it time...

    My 3.9 is getting up to 200K

  7. #7
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    My 3.5 Rossi had 290K on it and still went great, didnt use any oil, blew no smoke,


    "How long since you've visited The Good Oil?"

    '93 V8 Rossi
    '97 to '07. sold.
    '01 V8 D2
    '06 to 10. written off.
    '03 4.6 V8 HSE D2a with Tornado ECM
    '10 to '21
    '16.5 RRS SDV8
    '21 to Infinity and Beyond!


    1988 Isuzu Bus. V10 15L NA Diesel
    Home is where you park it..

    [IMG][/IMG]

  8. #8
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    I've started to notice these days why people stick a 350chev into anything they can squeeze it into ..... You could spend a hell of a lot of money and time to rebuild the old rover motor .................... Look how much those crate motors are Little wonder there fitted to everything.

    Chev 350 Crate Motor Chev 350 Engine Conversion SKI Boat Engine Monaro Camaro | eBay

    Time to re-power the rangie :P

    seeya,
    Shane L.

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